One man came in three or four times when I first started working there. He had the same M.O. each time: stagger in, order a muffin, tear that muffin to pieces like a starved hyena devouring a deer carcass (you should have seen it, there were bits of muffin ten feet away from him!), fall asleep in one of the rocking chairs, pee on the chair while sleeping, wake back up, ask us to call him a cab, and leave.
One man who worked next door as a dj was a regular for several months, but hasn't been in at all recently. This guy was great entertainment, in that he told the most amazing stories. Seriously, if half of his stories were true, this man must have lived an amazing life. According to his stories, he was in a motorcycle accident when he was younger, and in a coma for 2 years. Before the accident, he could play the guitar better than Clapton, but ever since the accident, he's had trouble. Not surprising until you hear the trouble. He can play every note perfectly on air guitar. But if you put an actual guitar in his hands, he can't do a thing. This 300 pound man also used to be a stripper and was worth over 30 million dollars before he decided to sell everything, give all his money away, and move to Oklahoma to be a dj at a strip club. He was also fluent in Spanish (and yet swore that the Spanish word for grapes was grapas). And once, he was hiking with some friends and someone got sick and there was no doctor around for miles. I don't remember the details of the story, but it involves using a pen and some Everclear to perform some sort of medical procedure.
One sweet boy in his 20's is a klepto who told me that he liked my shirt, but it was the wrong color (red) because Valentine's Day was over. When I told him you could wear red on days other than Valentine's Day, he said, "Oh I guess you're right. Like weddings, birthdays, the 4th of July..." He has also read me some of his love poetry before. Pretty amazing stuff.
But my favorite, my all-time favorite happened tonight. As long as I live I'll never forget the night that I answered the Joe's Addiction phone and heard this from the male voice on the other end of the line, "Hi, yeah, I just had surgery on my butt and I need to buy pads. Can I have ten dollars?" What a special night!
Joe's is a great place to be. It's definitely a change from my day job where I work with mostly normal people (Don't get any bigs heads, HGM'ers, you're only 'normal' in comparison to these people. You're still not actually normal. Surely you know that). But once a week I get to drive out to Joe's Addiction and see the amazing variety that life brings us. The atmosphere is incredible, and I have met many, many fascinating people while working there. Each one has opened my eyes just a bit more to the vastness of God's love for people of all shapes, sizes, backgrounds, and places in life. If you're ever in the area, you should most definitely stop by for a visit.
1 comment:
corrie! thanks! i love this. i love the people at Joe's too. thanks for introducing some of them to all your friends.
Post a Comment